Some people's comments were 'so what has Thailand contributed to FLOSS anyway' which admittedly is not massive. I do submit however that merely USING open source software advances its cause. Heck, closed source software development in general isn't massive in Thailand.. (My company does it though..:)
As for using open source software in Thai, look at what the new IT minister is rubishing away... And that for a country where the SOFTWARE cost of one PC with Windows XP + Open Office is around US$ 540, which is easily 2-3 FULL monthly salaries for an average middle class office worker. Yes that's SOFTWARE cost alone for XP & Office, never mind buying the computer itself.
Now, if you throw that away, with people having to save months and months to buy just Windows & Office (never mind the computer itself) then how can the logical conclusion be ANYTHING but 'piracy'. ? Mind, this is a country that is trying to shed its image of a safe-haven for piracy. OF COURSE past governments seriously looked into and promoted open-source: It's a viable road away from piracy, and lowering costs WITHOUT sacrificing business productivity.
So how feasible is it to run Open Source software in Thailand. Just for laughs I checked what would happen if I try to 'go Thai' on my Ubuntu laptop, and checking on OpenOffice in Thai. GUESS WHAT: A fully localized system, including translations, Thai fonts, thai hyphenation & word break AND Thai spell-checker takes about 4 mouse clicks. Don't believe it? Well I took screen shots:
The final screen shot shows a fully localized OpenOffice 2.0, showing the spell-check function.
Honestly, with software this brilliant, WHAT is this IT minister thinking, and why is he minister of IT anyway if he doesn't appreciate obvious quality, and an obvious road to combat piracy & the resulting higher international business stature, and SAVING MONEY for the people?
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Some people's comments were 'so what has Thailand contributed to FLOSS anyway' which admittedly is not massive. I do submit however that merely USING open source software advances its cause. Heck, closed source software development in general isn't massive in Thailand.. (My company does it though.. :)
As for using open source software in Thai, look at what the new IT minister is rubishing away... And that for a country where the SOFTWARE cost of one PC with Windows XP + Open Office is around US$ 540, which is easily 2-3 FULL monthly salaries for an average middle class office worker. Yes that's SOFTWARE cost alone for XP & Office, never mind buying the computer itself.
Now, if you throw that away, with people having to save months and months to buy just Windows & Office (never mind the computer itself) then how can the logical conclusion be ANYTHING but 'piracy'. ? Mind, this is a country that is trying to shed its image of a safe-haven for piracy. OF COURSE past governments seriously looked into and promoted open-source: It's a viable road away from piracy, and lowering costs WITHOUT sacrificing business productivity.
So how feasible is it to run Open Source software in Thailand. Just for laughs I checked what would happen if I try to 'go Thai' on my Ubuntu laptop, and checking on OpenOffice in Thai. GUESS WHAT: A fully localized system, including translations, Thai fonts, thai hyphenation & word break AND Thai spell-checker takes about 4 mouse clicks. Don't believe it? Well I took screen shots:
http://nachang.com/ubuntu
The final screen shot shows a fully localized OpenOffice 2.0, showing the spell-check function.
Honestly, with software this brilliant, WHAT is this IT minister thinking, and why is he minister of IT anyway if he doesn't appreciate obvious quality, and an obvious road to combat piracy & the resulting higher international business stature, and SAVING MONEY for the people?